Social Fund (UK)

The Social Fund in the UK was a form of welfare benefit provision payable for exceptional or intermittent needs, in addition to regular payments such as Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support.

The United Kingdom coalition government has abolished the discretionary social fund with effect from April 2013, by means of legislation contained in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Community care grants and crisis loans will be abolished from April 2013 and instead funding is being made available to local authorities in England and to the devolved administrations to provide such assistance in their areas as they see fit.

There were two categories of Social Fund:

The social fund schemes were implemented in 1987 to 1988, as part of an overall review of benefits (the Fowler reviews) initiated by Norman Fowler, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (1981–1987) replacing the former system of Single Payments of Supplementary Benefit.

There were three payments:

The merits of each application were considered taking into account: the nature of the need; the existence of available resources; the possibility there is a more suitable provider; and the budgetary allocation.

The complaints procedure relevant to the discretionary social fund differs from regular appeal arrangements. Reviews carried out by frontline staff could be further reviewed by the Social Fund Inspectors (SFIs) of the Independent Review Service (IRS) which is part of the Department for Work and Pensions, and managed by a Social Fund Commissioner appointed by the Minister. The SFIs' review applies both a merits and judicial review test. The details of the discretionary social fund are set out in ‘directions’, an unusual form of secondary legislation.

In the 1980s, the government's policy shifted between a discretionary approach to one based upon more concrete legal entitlement. The means-tested Supplementary Benefits scheme was revised in 1980 to include the provision of 'Single Payments' and 'Additional Requirements' which were disbursed according to detailed criteria contained in complex Regulations made under the primary legislation. These payments replaced previous discretionary payments. However, by the time of the Fowler reviews in 1983 government policy had once again embraced discretion as its main method of delivering means-tested benefit to cover exceptional and intermittent needs that were not accounted for by the mainstream welfare benefits.

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